ATPE Senior Lobbyist Monty Exter testifying before the House Public Education Committee on March 12, 2019

Members of the House Public Education committee heard more than 12 hours of testimony this Tuesday on House Bill 3 (HB 3), the House’s comprehensive school finance reform bill. Stakeholders from parents to teachers and even children on spring break testified about the $9 billion bill. Many witnesses at Tuesday’s hearing expressed support for the bill, but a number of them shared reservations about its move to roll funding for gifted and talented programs into the basic allotment and a proposed merit pay plan that the commissioner of education would oversee under HB 3 by Rep. Dan Huberty (R-Kingwood).

ATPE testified neutrally on HB 3 stating that while the bill as filed has many positive qualities and would inject much-needed funding into the public education system, it also includes some troubling changes regarding the state’s minimum salary schedule and using teacher evaluations and student performance data for merit pay. Many witnesses, including ATPE, who expressed concerns about the merit pay plan noted that it would be difficult if not impossible for the commissioner to determine which teachers might receive merit pay under HB 3 without using data from student test scores, even though the bill itself does not specifically call for the use of the STAAR for this purpose. ATPE opposes the use of student performance data, including test scores, as the primary measure of a teacher’s effectiveness for purposes of compensation, which ATPE shared with the committee during our testimony that was delivered by Senior Lobbyist Monty Exter on Tuesday.

Currently, HB 3 is still pending in committee with a substitute version of the bill expected to be discussed next Tuesday, March 19. Read more about Tuesday’s school finance hearing in this blog post by ATPE Lobbyist Andrea Chevalier.

On Wednesday, the House Public Education Committee reconvened to hear a host of other bills related to topics such as Districts of Innovation (DOI) and school start dates. ATPE Senior Lobbyist Monty Exter testified in support of HB 1051, a bill that would make permanent the Goodwill Excel center permanent, a charter school offering a successful dropout recovery program for adult students. ATPE also supported HB 340 relating to full-day pre-k and HB 1276 relating to educator certification. More details on bills heard during Wednesday’s hearing can be found here.

Earlier this week, the White House released the president’s 2020 budget proposal, which is little more than a statement of the president’s priorities given that Congress actually passes the federal budget. The proposal would cut billions from the Department of Education’s budget compared to what Congress previously enacted, while funding controversial programs such as school privatization and performance-based compensation. Read a more detailed analysis of the President’s budget proposal on our Teach the Vote blog here.

The Senate State Affairs Committee met Thursday morning to hear a number of bills. Among them was Senate Bill 12 by Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston). SB 12 would increase the TRS contribution rate and get the fund back to a point of actuarial soundness by the end of the biennium. In addition to the increased contribution rate, the bill would also fund a small 13th check of $500 for current TRS retirees. ATPE Senior Lobbyist Monty Exter testified in support of the bill. For more background on why TRS contribution increases are now needed, check out this previous blog post about actions taken by the TRS board of trustees in the summer of 2018.

Residents of the San Antonio area’s House District 125 elected Democrat Ray Lopez to represent them in the House in a special election held this Tuesday. Lopez, a former city council member will be serving in the seat vacated by current Bexar County Commissioner and former HD 125 state representative Justin Rodriguez. ATPE congratulates Representative-Elect Lopez and looks forward to working with him. This election was the last in a series of special elections meant to fill seats that were vacated after last fall’s elections. As we reported last week, Houston area residents of House District 145 last week elected Democrat Christina Morales to fill the seat vacated by former representative and now Senator Carol Alvarado.

Last Friday evening the Senate released its version of a school finance reform proposal, Senate Bill 4 by Sen. Larry Taylor (R-Friendswood). While the Senate has worked diligently to pass an across-the-board teacher pay raise bill this session (SB 3), its version of a more comprehensive school finance reform plan is a little less robust than its counterpart in the House. SB 4 includes provisions for outcomes-based funding and merit pay for classroom teachers. Read more information about the Senate bill in this blog post by ATPE Lobbyist Mark Wiggins.

In each fiscal year (FY), which runs October 1 through September 30, the President releases his vision for the country’s budget. It really is just that- a statement on how the President believes money should be spent based on his (or her) priorities. Actual fiscal determinations are made by Congress. For example, past presidential budgets have proposed eliminating Title II of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which provides over $2 billion in grants to states to improve teacher effectiveness. However, Title II has remained intact because Congress will not eliminate it.

The 2020 presidential budget proposal includes $62 billion for the Department of Education (ED) to provide K-12 and higher education programs and funding, which is an $8.5 billion or 12% decrease compared to what Congress enacted in the last budget. President Trump’s budget plan cuts K-12 education by $5.1 billion and calls for eliminating at least 16 programs. While maintaining current levels of funding for large programs such as Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the President’s budget pushes multiple controversial programs such as school privatization marketed as “school choice,” charter school expansion, and performance-based compensation, as well as funding for magnet schools and school safety. The proposal includes the following:

Creating a federal tax credit costing up to $50 billion over 10 years for donations to scholarship programs for families of elementary and secondary students to subsidize private school tuition

$500 million (an increase of $60M) to fund the opening, expansion, and facilities of charter schools

$107 million to expand magnet schools

$50 million in new funding for districts participating in the Title I student-centered funding pilot, which allows districts to to use federal, state, and local funding for public school choice

Raising the percentage of Title I dollars states can use to fund expanded educational choice for disadvantaged students from 3% to 5%

Increasing the funding for the DC Opportunity Scholarship program, which awards scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools in Washington, DC

While the bulk of Title II under ESSA would be eliminated yet again, the FY 2020 Presidential budget proposes two main initiatives that affect teachers:

$200 million for the Teacher and School Leader Incentive grant program, which would support performance-based compensation systems and human capital management systems that include either mentoring of new teachers or increased compensation for effective teachers

$300 million (an increase of $170M) for Education Innovation and Research, mainly for studying teacher-driven professional development (PD) and providing stipends for teachers to attend PD

As for school safety, the budget includes:

$700 million ($354M increase) in Department of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services grants to give states and school districts resources to implement the recommendations of the Federal Commission on School Safety (FCSS)

$200 million (increase of $105M) will go to ED for School Safety National Activities, which provides grants to states and school districts to develop school emergency operations plans, as well as counseling and emotional support. $100M of this will be used for a School Safety State Grant program to implement the recommendations of the FCSS

Other points of interest include TEACH grants, which award annual amounts up to $4,000 to eligible undergraduate and graduate students to become full-time teachers in high-need areas for at least four years. The Presidential budget proposes cutting funding to this program by $3.1 million. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which allows the cancellation of federal student loans for non-profit and government employees after 10 years of on-time payments, is also eliminated in the budget.

In addition to the aforementioned maintained levels of Title I and IDEA funding, the FY 2020 Presidential budget proposal would maintain current levels of funding for many programs including state assessments, English language acquisition programs, migrant education, neglected and delinquent education, education for homeless children and youths, and rural education.

The budget would decrease funding to Indian education programs and impact aid, which helps to offset revenue loss to districts that serve areas that include federal lands. The budget plan also shifts around more than $12B in IDEA funding, cutting some programs entirely while increasing funding to others.

Lastly, the budget proposes elimination of many programs, including arts in education, full-service community schools, Promise neighborhoods, and Special Olympics educational programs. However, don’t despair! Remember, the president’s proposed budget is a suggestion and a statement of his priorities. Given the split control of the U.S. House of Representatives, it is even less likely that President Trump’s proposals as described here ultimately will be enacted.

The entire proposal includes all areas of funding across the government. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, check out the administration’s three-page overview. Keep in mind that these documents were created by the White House and do not represent an objective analysis.

ATPE will continue to monitor and report on the federal budget discussions in Washington with assistance from our DC-based federal lobby team. Stay tuned to Teach the Vote for updates.

This week’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on collective bargaining topped the education news coming out of Washington, but across the street, Congress was working on a few public education issues as well. A U.S. Senate committee gave early approval to a future education budget, a separate Senate committee advanced a bill to revamp the federal role in Career and Technical Education (CTE), and the Trump Administration continued its work on school safety.

Federal education funding

The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies marked up a bill this week to address funding for the education department in fiscal year 2019 (FY19). While the bill still has to get the approval of the full appropriations committee, the full Senate, and then the U.S. House, it is an early indicator of how the U.S. Senate intends to fund education in the future. On the other side of the building, the House has its own version of an FY19 education funding bill sitting in the same spot as its senate companion (having passed out of the subcommittee). Overall, the Senate bill would provide $71.4 billion in funding for the Department of Education, which represents a $541 million increase, while the House bill grants $71 billion, a $43 million bump. The respective committees have summaries of the House and Senate bills posted for more information.

Rewrite of the federal CTE law

Those funding bills would stabilize funding for CTE at or just above current levels for FY19, and a separate bill to reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act is gaining considerable steam. The White House and other major players have backed the legislation, and it easily passed out of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Tuesday. The bill would give states more authority in crafting their goals, as long as they are aligned with requirements under the bill, but states would be required to meet those goals within two years or face losing funding. A House version of the bill has already made its way to the Senate, where it has sat while the Senate works on this version of the bill. One loud voice opposing the Senate version is the American Association of School Administrators, who called the bill too prescriptive and a step away from the flexibility advancements made under ESSA.

School safety commission

Meanwhile, the Federal Commission on School Safety began what is expected to be a series of regional listening sessions in Lexington, Kentucky this week. The remaining sessions have not been announced, but the commission intends to host more, calling this week’s meeting the “Midwest” session. The commission was announced by President Trump in March following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Parkland, Florida. It is chaired by Secretary of Education Betsy Devos and is also made up of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. The commission has already conducted some of its work in Washington both publicly and through private meetings.

Back in Texas, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced a federal grant opportunity pertaining to school safety: the STOP School Violence Prevention and Mental Health Training Program grant is available through the US Department of Justice. TEA said it intends to apply, but also shared that the opportunity is open to individual ISDs. More information on the grant can be found here.

Congress advanced the omnibus spending bill to President Trump overnight and it received his signature this afternoon. The $1.3 trillion spending plan played out in a dramatic fashion, emerging Wednesday with support from both Republican and Democratic leadership, but with some waffling from President Trump.

After a bipartisan U.S. House vote of support (256-167) on Thursday and a similar vote in the Senate (65-32) that followed early Friday morning, President Trump again expressed consternation over the deal. He tweeted that he was considering a veto based on two missing pieces: full funding for his border wall and a plan for individuals that fall under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Ultimately, President Trump signed the legislation, but not without additional expressions of concern. Before the press this afternoon, he called the bill a “ridiculous situation” and told Congress he would never vote for a bill like this again, referring to its high price tag and lack of transparency. Trump said he was only signing it because it was a matter of national security and included increased spending for the military, the largest in history. He also highlighted several things he considers wins, like some initial funding to begin work on his border wall and dollars to address the opioid epidemic.

President Trump’s signature prevents a government shutdown that loomed at midnight tonight. Learn more about the spending plan, particularly as it relates to a funding boost for education, in this post from ATPE Lobbyist Kate Kuhlmann.

ATPE Lobbyist Monty Exter testified before the Texas Commission on Public School Finance on March 19, 2018.

The Texas Commission on Public School Finance met in Austin this week on Monday, March 19. The commission spent the day taking both invited and non-invited testimony from the public as the members consider their recommendations to the 86th Legislature for modifying the state’s school finance system. ATPE Lobbyist Monty Exter offered public testimony on behalf of ATPE, highlighting ways the school finance system could be overhauled to provide property tax relief. (The commission previously heard invited testimony from ATPE Executive Director Gary Godsey during an earlier meeting last month.) Read a full recap of Monday’s hearing and the extensive public testimony in this week’s blog post.

Ahead of Monday’s meeting, a consortium of education groups briefed the media on a new poll showing that most Texans support increasing the amount spent on public education. For more on the poll results, check out this blog post from ATPE Lobbyist Mark Wiggins.

A subcommittee or working group of the school finance commission tasked with studying school expenditures also held a meeting the following morning to take additional testimony relative to their charge. The working group is chaired by Rep. Dan Huberty, who also chairs the House Public Education Committee. Read more about Tuesday’s working group session here.

The chair of the full commission sparked controversy this week after he made comments questioning whether the state should spend money on students he referred to as “slow learners.” Special education advocacy groups were quick to complain about Chairman Scott Brister’s remarks, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman in this article that also features a quote from ATPE’s Exter.

The next meeting for the Commission will be on April 5, 2018 at 9 a.m. in the William B. Travis Building, Room 1-104, located at 1701 N. Congress Ave., Austin, TX. The meeting will be webcast at: http://www.adminmonitor.com/tx/tea/.

The plan carries a $211 million price tag, which does not include a substantial cost anticipated to be incurred by local school districts. The districts will be expected to perform the bulk of the work meeting the needs of children who were wrongfully denied special education services in the past due to districts’ following a TEA directive to limit special education enrollment. Because of this funding challenge, many school administrators are warning they will need additional financial support from the state in order to properly serve qualifying children. The Texas Council of Administrators of Special Education (TCASE) noted this in a press release this week, saying the TEA plan “is rich with school district monitoring and compliance measures, but fails to offer adequate financial and other support to districts.” Read the full TCASE press statement here.

Interim legislative hearings are in full swing now, and multiple committees are discussing how to address the state’s funding challenges that have a direct impact on public education.

Earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee met to consider “options to increase investment earnings of the Economic Stabilization Fund,” often referred to as the state’s rainy day fund. Texas State Comptroller Glenn Hegar warned this week that the state could face a downgrade of its credit rating if it does not look at changing the way the $11 billion fund is invested. Decisions about the fund could have future implications for how the state funds teacher pensions and other education-related endeavors. ATPE Lobbyist Monty Exter has written more about the hearing in his blog post this week.

Another tough issue being debated by numerous committees this interim is teacher compensation. Several high-profile elected officials running for re-election have made teacher pay raises a key talking point in their campaign messaging, but few concrete plans or identified sources of funding have been proposed. On Monday, March 26, the Senate Education Committee will take its turn at debating the issue. ATPE Lobbyist Kate Kuhlmann has been invited to testify on the issue. Stay tuned to our blog next week for updates on this and other hearings.

Budget negotiators in Congress have reached an agreement on a deal to keep the lights on in Washington. The deal represents $1.3 trillion in total spending and a boost of $3.9 billion to spending on education. Congress now has until the end of Friday to pass the bill, preventing another government shutdown.

If Congress is able to pass the legislation in its current form (Republican and Democratic leaders are backing the final negotiation) and President Trump signs the legislation (he seemed to support the legislation Wednesday night after waffling throughout the day), many programs at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) will see boosts to funding.

Boosts include funding for Title I and special education (IDEA), the two largest sources of funding at ED, as well as a program aimed at recruiting, supporting, and training educators. Other boosts to funding include programs pertaining to STEM education, technology enhancements, counseling and mental health, social and emotional learning, after school curricula, and rural schools. There is also new funding for school safety in the form of training and safety technologies like metal detectors.

Many of the funded programs are ones President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos cut under their budget request. For example, the president’s budget proposal suggested defunding the $2 billion program aimed at recruiting, supporting, and training educators primarily in high-needs schools. Aside from an increase to charter school funding, Congress also ignored the administration’s requests regarding public and private school choice. There is no funding for a $500 million investment in expanding existing state voucher programs or establishing new voucher programs, and the $1 billion in Title I funding Trump wanted to see invested in a system termed Title I portability (a refresher on that can be found here) is not included. Secretary DeVos faced a congressional committee just this week in an effort to advocate for a number of major reforms at ED, but those were largely overlooked by congressional leaders under the spending plan.

While the deal looks poised for passage, there are still several procedural measures that could prevent its passage ahead of the Friday midnight deadline. Check back for more on how the latest deal on federal funding plays out.

President Trump released his 2019 federal budget proposal this week, a proposal that presidents issue annually for consideration by lawmakers on Capitol Hill as they work to hash out a budget for the country. Much like last year’s budget request, Trump’s 2019 budget proposal requests a big chunk of funding for public and private school choice, maintains funding levels for Title I and special education, and seeks large cuts to hand-chosen K-12 programs within the Department of Education (ED).

Trump’s new budget proposal entails a $7.1 billion cut to funding for ED, which represents a 10.5% decrease. Of the overall requested cut, $4.4 billion comes from complete elimination of 17 programs deemed by the administration to be “duplicative, ineffective, or more appropriately supported through State, local, or private funds.” A $2 billion program aimed at recruiting, supporting, and training educators primarily in high-needs schools is once again on the chopping block. Other programs cut under his latest budget proposal include a $12 million program for gifted and talented education and a more than $1 billion program for before-school, after-school, and summer enrichment programs.

Expanding public and private school choice is once again a signature piece of Trump’s plan, totaling $1.1 billion. The proposal notes that the billion dollars requested is intended to be “a down payment toward achieving the President’s goal of an annual Federal investment of $20 billion—for a total of an estimated $100 billion when including matching State and local funds—in school choice funding.” Of that billion, $500 million would go toward a grant program for expanding existing state voucher programs and establishing new voucher programs, among other potential options. Another $500 million would go toward charter school expansion, which saw an increase in funding from Congress following Trump’s last request, and just under $100 million would be dedicated to expanding the number of public magnet schools.

Aside from the bump in funding for charter school expansion, Trump’s school choice funding requests largely fell flat in Congress last year. However, the president does use his budget proposal to tout a piece of the recently passed tax plan that allows families to use 529 college savings accounts to pay for private school tuition or home schooling costs.

Funding levels for Title I are requested at $15.5 billion and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) would be funded at $12.8 billion. New to President Trump’s budget proposal this year is a funding request for $43 million aimed at opioid addiction prevention. Check back for more from Washington as Congress works to negotiate future federal appropriations.

(Note: the budget deal recently struck in Washington set overall funding levels for the federal government, which entailed an increase in non-defense discretionary spending or the category of funding that covers agencies like ED; the appropriations bills hash out how those overall approved funding levels will be divvied up among specific departments, agencies, programs, and etc.)

ATPE Lobbyist Josh Sanderson will be back from Washington, D.C. tomorrow and will provide a full wrap-up of Tuesday’s big hearing on Social Security. In the meantime, here are updates on other happenings this week in the nation’s capital.

Two additional house hearings were held Tuesday on Capitol Hill. Secretary of Education John King continued his advocacy for President Obama’s education budget proposal before the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations’ education subcommittee. As has been the case in other budget hearings, lawmakers pressed the secretary on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Among other issues, subcommittee members addressed state authority and the role of the federal government under the new law. King reiterated that he would adhere to the law while ensuring states maintain certain standards.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce met to discuss student privacy and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, which is due for a rewrite. The committee developed a bipartisan bill to rewrite the law last year, but failed to move the bill as ESSA debate took priority. Leaders are now looking to re-energize the issue in an attempt to get a law passed. The issue is a sticky one as lawmakers attempt to govern the use of student data for research while maintaining student privacy.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away at the Department of Education (ED), a committee tasked with writing rules that will administer parts of ESSA began its work this week. The committee is made up of individuals representing states, school districts, parents, students, teachers, principals, charter schools, paraprofessionals, the civil rights community, Native-American tribes, and the business community.

The committee began its three-day session on Monday with a discussion on “supplement, not supplant,” which is language that says states cannot replace state and local dollars with federal dollars. The language is not new to law, but changes under ESSA require new guidance and clarification. The remainder of the session was focused on assessments. The committee tackled issues such as the definition of nationally recognized state assessments (which states will now be able to use for accountability purposes in place of state high school tests), new language in law allowing computer-adaptive testing, and specifics of required tests for English-language learners, among other things.

This is the first round of negotiated rulemaking pertaining to ESSA. The committee is scheduled to meet again in April and potentially for a third round of meetings. The members of the committee must come to a consensus on the rules covering the issues at hand. If they fail to do so on both or one of the topics, ED will write its own draft rules. ESSA requires that three areas of law go through negotiated rulemaking: assessments, “supplement, not supplant,” and standards. ED has chosen to not initiate negotiated rulemaking on standards at this time. In other areas of the law, such as accountability, ED can proceed under its typical rulemaking process. ED has more information regarding the negotiated rule making process at its ESSA webpages.